Sharks right wing Marty Havlat underwent surgery Wednesday to repair a partially torn tendon in his left hamstring, four days after the freak accident that saw him crumple to the ice after jumping over the boards to begin his next shift.

General manager Doug Wilson said that the team didn’t set a timetable for Havlat’s return, but acknowledged he would miss somewhere in the ballpark of six to eight weeks.

“He’s going to be out an extended period of time, but he’s going to be back way in advance prior to the end of the year and that’s the best case scenario for us,” Wilson said.

There was concern that there might be a complete tear of the tendon after Havlat clipped his skate on the boards during the third period of San Jose’s 3-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, then fell in obvious pain. But once the procedure by Dr. Mark Safran of Stanford was under way, Wilson said, there was the good news that the tear was only partial.

Wilson noted that other NHL teams are dealing with their share of injuries, too, and that Havlat’s was one where the team knew definitively what the problem was and had a good idea when he would be back, an indirect reference to the concussion problems elsewhere.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.